Ploscha viewed by Alyaksei Marachkin (a fragment оf the painting) :: Charter'97 :: News

Artist Alyaksei Marachkin finished painting his picture ”For Freedom. Kalinousky Square”. Its presentation is to be held in the headquarters of the BNF party at the “Belarusian resistance” exhibition.

Marachkin was going to make first sketches for his picture last year during the protests in Kastrichnitskaya Square but failed because the tent camp was terminated. He started painting the picture after 25 March 2006.

In his interview with Radio Svaboda member of the Union of Artists of Belarus Alyaksei Marachkin remarked that the picture would be ambiguously perceived because it has multiple planes and a lot of allusions, which are not easy for explication.

“The most explicit event in the picture is its positive outlook .In the forefront there is a guy with the flag of the European Union and a girl with the white- read-white flag thus symbolizing today’s youth. But there is also a negative attitude in the picture but in the background. Our ancestors with spears and flags of those times are depicted in the background. Suddenly the woodpecker or “ informer” or a sort of it has flown up on the column. Killers, may be not exactly, the killers but those who watched the people in the square through their optical sights are there on the roofs of the Palace of Republic”, the artist tells.

Alyaksei Marachkin says that the picture differs from his previous pieces. This picture looks like a poster. Many of its characters are very realistic.

“Absolutely everything is painted in a realistic manner. Even the photo is realistic. You can see the priest Akalovich who prayed for the youth in the square. You can also recognize other familiar faces – for example, Milinkevich and Kazulin and a well-known large poster “Kastus Kalinousky Square”, tells Marachkin.

There are also negative characters in the picture: ”A bold man with mustache is coming from the hatch. We can also see a red beret of the commander of a special regiment. Mr. Marachkin stresses that these are only images and each can have his own comprehension of these characters.

“The picture may arouse different associations, which can be differently explicated. And there is one character in the picture that hasn’t been explicated yet. An old woman sitting and peeling potatoes. It is the image of old Belarus, which supported the president. And a laundering machine is nearby with a logo of quality. Everything is painted in detail. Even the leaflets flying over the square bare some inscriptions” Marachkin tells.

People pay attention to the fact that the picture is painted in light colors. People in the picture wear spring clothes .It does not look like frost, which broke out in that March.
Was this step motivated by the idea of the picture itself –to express the positive attitude?

Alyaksei Marachkin answers:

“If you give a true description of the events than, in principle, there wasn’t any victory. The youth was suffering, the youth was freezing. The bulldozers cleaned out the square. But I have chosen another approach. – To develop a romantic outlook to differentiate positive from negative“.

Picture ”For Freedom. Kalinousky Square is rather large, almost 2X2 meters. The piece has not been exhibited, yet. The site of the BNF party has placed its fragment.

Presentation of this picture together with other pictures of Alyaksei Marachkin is to be held in the headquaters of the BNF party at the “Belarusian resistance” exhibition.